Writing It Twice: Self-Translation and the Making of a World Literature in French

by Sara Kippur

Though the practice of self-translation long predates modernity, it has found new forms of expression in the global literary market of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. The international renown of self-translating authors Samuel Beckett, Joseph Brodsky, and Vladimir Nabokov has offered motivation to a new generation of writers who actively translate themselves.

Intervening in recent debates in world literature and translation studies, Writing It Twice establishes the prominence and vitality of self-translation in contemporary French literature. Because of its intrinsic connection to multiple literary communities, self-translation prompts a reexamination of the aesthetics and politics of reading across national lines. Kippur argues that self-translated works should be understood as the paradigmatic example of world literature and, as such, crucial for interpreting the dynamics of literary circulation into and out of French.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810132052
• ISBN13: 9780810132054
• Release Date: November 2015
• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 8.9"